The reception went well for the opening show of "12 Woodfire Kilns of the Northwest."  In conjunction with the show, David Hollander had his "Eleven Hands" sculpture installed.  It is an exciting display of gesture and playfulness in such a larger than life scale.  Ceramic sculpture of this size often loses fluidity of weightlessness, becoming bulky, heavy, and stagnant.  But Hollander's attentiveness to the gestural language of hands create a dance between the embraced, the rested, and the seemingly fighting fingers, palms, and wrists.  Check him out: www.dfhollander.com

A couple days past, while setting up for the NCECA show in Seattle, Hiroshi mentioned that a mutual friend past away.  This news was surprising to me, and we had a chance to talk about Puck (Patrick Brotz) and his kind-hearted personality.  Puck's farm, located in Elkton, Oregon was lovingly called the "Good-Vibe" farm, because, well... that's where good vibes are grown.  I took some time to reflect on the friendship between Puck and myself and I don't know if I would be working with the amazing people I am now if it hadn't been for Puck's introduction to Hiroshi.  When I experience a strong sense of emotion in the way life unfolds, I find myself in my studio.  Much like a musician plays the blues when he or she is down, I spent March 27th working in clay.  This pot was made in memory of Patrick "Puck" Brotz, you will be missed my friend.

I'm back in Portland till wednesday, so it feels a little like, what I'm guessing, limbo feels like.  When I was thumbing through the pics from the set up, I found this nice one of two of my pots in Hiroshi's booth (foreground and background).  A lot of thoughtfulness went into how each pot should be displayed, and it really shows!

So, with everything happening today in Seattle between driving, conversations, curating and set up, I think Careen Stoll takes the winner for picture of the day with her stone vases.  The vases offer great characteristics of wood fire with variations of wood ash, flashing, and crystal formation.

Ok..., so two pics of the day.  I couldn't leave this detail shot of one of Hiroshi Ogawa's vases showing off his kiln's signature juicy wood ash drips deemed "tiger's eye."

Hiroshi Ogawa put together a pamphlet for all of us showing of the results of Hikarigama (the Illuminated) kiln.  Looking good!  The show opening is located at Pots Gallery thursday, March 29th, 6-9 p.m.  Please come by, this should prove to be a strong woodfire show with so many great kilns and potters involved.